"Turnkey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life at the Old-Bailey, and acquitted. Notwithstanding this prosecution, which ought to have redoubled the vigilance of the jailors, brigadier Mackintosh, and several other prisoners, broke from Newgate, after having mastered the keeper and turnkey, and disarmed the sentinel. The court proceeded with the trials of those that remained, and a great number were found guilty; four or five were hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Tyburn; and among these was one William Paul, a clergyman, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of correction for the parish of St. Andrews. The superintendent received us with the iron-hearted courtesy of a Newgate turnkey. Our company was evidently unwelcome, but as the friend who accompanied us was a man in authority, he was constrained to admit us. The first sound that greeted us was a piercing outcry from the treadmill. On going ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... suspicious scowl of a discounter of bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other, than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome corpulence of the little woman is produced by the life she leads, just as typhus fever is bred in the tainted air of a hospital. The very knitted woolen petticoat that she wears beneath a skirt made of an old gown, with the wadding protruding through the rents in the material, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of his being good, But he happened to be in a pleasant mood,— As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,— (He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) So what does he do but up and shout To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de lis, the turnkey's chains or the hangman's halter. You need not strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in when you ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... the thief, the jolly thief Who plies his trade so bold— May he never see a turnkey's key, Or sleep ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... no more business to go to the East Indies, than a man at full liberty, and having committed no crime, has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock him up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a small vessel from England, and gone directly to the island; had I loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the necessaries for the plantation, and for my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... conscientiously. She never left Louise's room without turning the key in the lock, and she steadfastly refused the girl permission to wander in the other rooms of the house. The prison was a real prison, indeed, but the turnkey sought to alleviate the prisoner's misery by every means in her power. She was indefatigable in her service, keeping the room warm and neat, attending to the girl's every want and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... project a plan of escape, to which he was emboldened by the great success of several similar attempts. Greater vigilance was, indeed, resorted to in the prison, after the flight of Brigadier Mackintosh, who had knocked down the turnkey, and ran off through the streets: and all cloaks, riding-hoods, and arms, were prohibited being brought in by the visiters who came to visit the prisoners. It is amusing to hear, that a certain form of riding-hoods acquired, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... looking for the silent man?" said another turnkey, passing me. "Yonder he lies—sleeping in the yard there. 'Tis not twenty minutes since ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... cellars, where we expected to be put to death every minute. At about four o'clock the cells of the common prisoners were opened, and they escaped, shouting 'Vive la Commune!' Our keeper himself had disappeared, and a turnkey presently opened our cells, and recommended us to run away. We were afraid this was a trap, but as it might afford a chance we determined to avail ourselves of it. Those amongst us who had plain clothes hurried them on, and I must say the gaolers behaved ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... By this means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his surprise, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar. The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Jones awoke, a bell was somewhere tolling for midnight. Somebody was at the door of his cell with a key. The lock grated, the door swung, the turnkey looked in and stepped back, and a ray of moonlight fell upon M. Jules St.-Ange. The prisoner sat upon the empty shackles and ring-bolt in ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... their gratitude for the attention they had met with from the sheriff and the inferior officers. Many pressed the hands of the turnkey to their lips, others to their hearts and on their knees, prayed that God, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary would bless him and the other jailors for their goodness. They all then fervently joined in prayer. To the astonishment of all, no clerical character, of ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... At this juncture the turnkey entered the cell, accompanied by two officials, one of whom read to him a missive from those in authority which stated that a petition for mercy which he had made could not be entertained, and that he must suffer the extreme ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... on the second floor, and it was very difficult for me to leave it at night, because the turnkey locked us up at 9 o'clock every evening. Still, I used to get out once in a while and wander around in the starlight. I did not know yet why I did it, but I presume it was a kind of somnambulism. I would go to bed thinking so intently of my lessons that ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... over town—surely you know, Mr. Springrove? Why, Manston, Miss Aldclyffe's steward. He was found dead the first thing this morning. He had hung himself behind the door of his cell, in some way, by a handkerchief and some strips of his clothes. The turnkey says his features were scarcely changed, as he looked at 'em with the early sun a-shining in at the grating upon him. He has left a full account of the murder, and all that led to it. So ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... witness the ceremony of rivetting; and the turnkeys and gaolers, in appearance not yet recovered from the alarm of the preceding evening, refused to listen to either bribe, menace, or solicitation. It was confoundedly vexatious. Whilst expostulating with the turnkey, I caught a glimpse through a barred window of the interior court, athwart which the chains lay extended, whilst in one railed off even from this the convicts were crowded, marching round and round—precaution forbade their remaining still—and uttering from time to time ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... him coming from his cell not long ago," said a turnkey, "may be he's gone to loiter ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... 'im. So don't ye,"—and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,—"don't ye, for all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a comprehensive smile round at the company,—then taking up his hat, he put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... nothing to lift Tom's spirits. The next day, hoping to verify or disprove his suspicion, he drove to Shopton Police Headquarters with Harlan Ames. The two talked briefly with Chief Slater, an old friend. Then a turnkey took ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... a custom in the Bastille for the prisoner to take the name of his room—that saves the turnkey the trouble of remembering names; however, if the Bastille be full, and two or three prisoners in the same room, they take two numbers; for example: I am first Tresor, if you were put here you would be first Tresor number two; another would be ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... a little more than quits. I owe you no explanation; yours has been the wrong. You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence, owe me a large debt of gratitude. And to conclude, as I have not yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a prisoner would induce you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... knock at the door, but it was not the turnkey. It was the butler to murmur, "Dinner, please." She went down and joined mamma and papa at the table. There were no guests except Terror and Suspense, and both of them wore smiling masks and made no visible sign ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... a farmer's field, and sold it for forty pounds; and for that horse he was taken, put in prison, tried, and condemned to be sent to the other country for life. Two days before he was to be sent away, I got leave to see him in the prison, and in the presence of the turnkey I gave him a thin cake of gingerbread, in which there was a dainty saw which could cut through iron. I then took on wonderfully, turned my eyes inside out, fell down in a seeming fit, and was carried out of the prison. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... — The jailor and the turnkey They quickly ran us down, And brought us back as prisoners Once more to Cavan town. [He comes in supported by Shawn.] There we lay bewailing All in a prison bound.... [He sees Christy. Goes and shakes him drunkenly ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... holding the candle himself. Lawrence remained outside. I had become so weak that I experienced a grateful restfulness. Kindly nature does not suffer a man seriously ill to feel weary. I was delighted to hear that my infamous turnkey was outside, for since his explanation of the iron collar I had looked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey's daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the Buckingham Palace hotel under their ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... ten guineas for it. I thought also to have obtained the night-cap in which he slept the night before his execution, but another collector was beforehand with me, and bribed the turnkey ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of Scriblerus. In support of the present reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes Pastor[*], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate," wherein the gentleman declares, that rather indeed in compliance with an old custom, than to gratify any particular will of ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... I shall feel philosophic, if we are served with nothing but bread and water. However, the turnkey told us that, until we have been tried and condemned, we are at liberty to get our food from outside—certainly a mockery, in most cases, considering that we all were relieved of any money found upon us, when we arrived in Harwich. It is a comfort ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... situation; and my natural disposition one day prevailing, like a fire which had long been smothered, I wreaked the fury of my indignation upon my innocent subjects, and in a twinkling destroyed the whole race. While I was employed in this general massacre, the turnkey, who brought me food, opened the door, and perceiving my transport, shrugged up his shoulders, and leaving my allowance, went out, pronouncing, Le pauvre diable! la tete lui tourne. My passion no sooner subsided than I resolved to profit by this opinion ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... to leave him, the turnkey standing by and impatiently jingling the ring of big brass keys which was suspended from his arm, when the prisoner called me back. He ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... England, and where he first announced his intention of divorcing Katherine of Arragon. After this it fell into decay. The good Ridley, the martyr, begged it of Edward VI. for a workhouse and a school. Hogarth painted the female prisoners here beating hemp under the lash of a cruel turnkey; and Pennant has left a curious sketch of the herd of girls whom he saw run like hounds to be fed when ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... knock nor the sound of soft, departing feet. He was still there! He was on guard! He had had good reason for his terrible certainty! He had foreseen what her plan might be, and she knew he would no more let her get past him down the hall than the turnkey will ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... others seem to feel in society, and certainly upon many occasions it was real. Still, if the question was, eternal company, without the power of retiring within yourself, or solitary confinement for life, I should say, "Turnkey, lock the cell!" My life, though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has been a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... an otherwise unattainable deliverance, and so yields the poor victim of unhappy outer conditions a passage to heaven. It is a thought no less false than it is frightful, which represents death as the vindictive turnkey of the creation, at whose approach probation ends, and the shuddering convict is thrust into hell, the hopeless bolt dropping into its ward behind him. It is rather the divine messenger of deliverance for those who are borne down here under a fate too ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... soon as I was more composed, I rose from the bench, put my necessaries into my valise, and summoned the gaoler, to whom I made a handsome present, thanking him for his kindness during my incarceration. I then shook hands with him, fee'd the turnkey who had attended upon me, and in a minute more I was clear of the Tower gates. How my heart heaved when I was once more ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... Advertiser for January 23, 1749, "about twenty fellows arm'd with Pistols, Cutlasses, Hangers, &c. went to the Gatehouse and one of them knocking at the Door, it was no sooner open'd than they all rush'd in, and struck and desperately wounded the Turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in Triumph carried off the Fellow who pick'd General Sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into Leicester House." Surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance of Daring Impudence must ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... "Carmagnole" in drunken, discordant tones. Keys rattled, bolts were drawn; doors were being flung open. The noise increased. Above the general din he heard the detestable voice of the turnkey. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... hand unlocked the door. Jack lunged in, behind him Mr. Pyecroft and Judge Harvey, and behind them Mary. On Jack's face was a look of menacing justice. But at sight of the trembling turnkey the invading party suddenly halted, and Jack's stern jaw relaxed and ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... over, I tried the door, which swung easily as I put my hand upon it, The little corridor was dark and I could hear no sound save the snoring of a drunken soldier, committed that day for fighting, as the turnkey had told me. I found the small window, and slid the sash, and let my boots fall to the ground, then climbing through and dropping on them. It was a dark night, but I was not long in reaching the road and pacing my way to the path and river. His Lordship ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... with eyes averted, and stood before the gate of the last steel cage—the woman's end of the prison—the turnkey following slowly. Cries of "Howdy, gal! What did ye git?" wore hurled after her, but she made no answer. The ominous sound of drawn bolts and the click of a key, and the girl and baby were inside the bars of the cage. These bars, foreshortened from where I stood, looked like a ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... amazed to see that the youth are in the majority in that building. I said to the turnkey: "What a pity it is that that bright fellow is in here!" "Oh," he says, "these bright fellows keep us busy." I talked some with the boys, and they laughed; but there was a catch in the guffaw, as though the laughter on its way had stumbled over a groan. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... here once. Sam Wilkins, a man that weighed about three hundred pounds, was the turnkey at the penitentiary. He lived in one of the finest houses in the town at that time. Nigger bands had all the music then. I have seen white organizations like the Odd Fellows and Masons follow Negro bands. Nigger orchestras played here all ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... how they eat and stuff, Lave off with less than half enough. Nine o'clock you mount the mill, That you mayn't cramp from settin' still. If that be ever so against your will, You must mount on the traaedin' mill. There is a turnkey that you'll find He is a raskill most unkind. To rob poor prisoners he is that man, To chaaete poor prisoners where he can. At eleven o'clock we march upstairs To hear the parson read the prayers. Then we are locked into a pen— It's almost like a lion's den. There's iron ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... the night, Thecla taking off her ear-rings, gave them to the turnkey of the prison, who then opened the door to her, and ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... on the right path for their legal quest, and before noon they were following a turnkey along a dim stone corridor, which led to the hospital cell where Lozcoski was confined. A third party trailed respectfully in their rear. He was an interpreter whom Joyce had insisted upon securing, at ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... in jail for about a week when he received a visitor. A turnkey brought her to his cell. It was Harriet Holden. She greeted him seriously but pleasantly, and then she asked the turnkey if she ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... seemed to look through tumbled bushes of silver eyebrows—the alcayde of the prison. He bowed, and rattled two farcically large keys. A practicable postern was ajar on the yellow wood of the studded gates. It was as if it afforded a glimpse of the other side of the world. The venerable turnkey, a gnome in a steeple-crowned hat, protruded a blood-red hand backwards in the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... feverish impatience, which luckily prompted me to visit him once more. As usual, I was admitted readily, and nearly reached his cell when I became aware, from the sound of voices heard through the grating in the door, that there was a visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired of the turnkey. ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... "mim;" said her sister lived at "twenty-sivin;" Simon she called "Simmun." She said Mrs. Varden was "the mildest, amiablest, forgivingest-sperited, longest-sufferingest female in existence." Baffled in all her matrimonial hopes, she was at last appointed female turnkey to a county Bridewell, which office she held for thirty ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the prison through the lodge, I found that the great importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less than by those whom they held in charge. "Well, Mr. Wemmick," said the turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates, and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, "what's Mr. Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it manslaughter, or what's he going to make ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the lowest room of the citadel, where he was kept securely for several years. One evening his jailer told him that he could never get out of this room, and that he might as well promise not to attempt such an impossible feat; but Hoeyland replied that it was the turnkey's duty to keep him in prison if he could, and his to get out if it were possible. The next day the prisoner was missing, and the means of his escape were not at first apparent; but on further examination ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... in memory of whom, whole fences and gates have been borne away, in splinters, from the scene of murder. He knows that the eyes of Europe are upon him; but he is not proud—only graceful. He bows, like the first gentleman in Europe, to the turnkey who brings him a glass of water; and composes his clothes and hassock as carefully, as good Madame Blaize could do. In private—within the walls of the condemned cell—every word and action of his waning life, is a lie. His whole time is divided between telling lies and writing them. If ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... or have you so far evaded the law? Let me tell you, the Intelligencer is the evildoers' nemesis. Is your conscience clear, your past unsullied as a virgin's bed, your every deed open to search? Do you know what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the girl did not follow, and then closed the passage. As the stone settled into place, the form moved quickly to the door and rapped three times. Almost instantly it swung open and the jailor with his lantern stood without. As the boy's form glided silently out past the stolid turnkey, Bert started back and with difficulty suppressed a cry of amazement. For a moment the light of the lantern had fallen on the face of the form ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... curb-stone, and halted. If any fresh crumbs of horror were about to be dropped, the children must be there to feast on them. Dr. Sevier stepped out, gave Mary his hand and then his arm, and went in with her. A question or two in the prison office, a reference to the rolls, and a turnkey led the way through a dark gallery lighted with dimly burning gas. The stench was suffocating. They stopped ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... turnkey announced to the priests that they were to leave the prefecture. "I fear," he said, "that you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge without taking ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... this while the turnkey unlocked the door with one of a heavy bunch of keys that he carried at his girdle. But when we entered, what a disappointment!—for there were no banquets now, no banners, no love, but the whole place gutted and turned into a barrack for French prisoners. The air was ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... of a narrow, crooked corridor that sloped downward, the turnkey unlocked a ponderous iron door with a huge key, and one of the guards following at Bucky's heels, pushed him forward. He fell down two or three steps and came to a sprawling heap on the floor ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... person. The great gate was never opened, no vehicle of any kind was admitted to pass through it, and a thick growth of horse-sorrel, both without and within the great oaken wings, bore witness to the fact. There was a turnkey at the little gate, and an old man—the only servant my uncle ever kept, who served for porter, gardener, and all other purposes—opened ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... The turnkey soon left the cell; the bolts rattled once more, and the key grated in the lock. After walking once or twice across his cell, May took up his volume of Beranger and for an hour or more seemed completely engrossed in its contents. Finally, he threw ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... sworn informations against her for bigamy; and that a warrant having been issued for her arrest upon that charge, the constables had arrived at the Mills for the purpose of executing it, and removing the body of the delinquent, M. M., to the custody of the turnkey; that measures would be taken on the spot to expel the persons who had followed in her train; and that Mr. Charles Nutter himself would arrive in little more than an hour, to congratulate his good wife, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... as he went away that if she would look to Laura's comfort a little it shouldn't be the worse for her; and to the turnkey who let them out ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... has numbered him, and if he is knocked down he'll be twisted; the turnkey of Newgate has told the judge how many times the prisoner has been tried before and therefore if he is found guilty, he certainly will be hanged. It is said to be the custom of the Old Bailey for one of the turnkeys of Newgate to give ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... comfortable home, for that, alas! was unoccupied, and the family refugees in a foreign land. But back again, in a felon's manacles, to find lodgment in a felon's cell-back to solitude and despair, when at length, the grim old turnkey turned the grating bolt upon him, and he was ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... twelve sodgers brought him to Maryborough jail, An' the turnkey resaved him, refusin' all bail; The fleet limbs wor chained, an' the sthrong hands wor bound, An' he laid down his length on the cowld prison ground. An' the dreams of his childhood kem over him there, As gentle an' ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... be placed to the account of the music; it is in reality owing to their poetical merit. To cite only one example out of many, I do not hesitate to declare the whole series of scenes in Raoul Sire de Crequy, where the children of the drunken turnkey set the prisoner at liberty, a master-piece of theatrical painting. How much were it to be wished that the Tragedy of the French, and even their Comedy in court-dress, had but a little of this truth of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... an irregular life, and been guilty of dishonesty. He behaved at first with much coolness and indifference, jeering at the magistrates. Francis was tried in the month of June for high treason, and sentenced to death, when his bluster ceased, and he fell back in a fainting fit in the arms of the turnkey. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... George Gorham said of Pixley, so I say of you: "The prison yawns before you, The turnkey stalks behind!" Now will you go? Or lag, and let that functionary floor you? To change the metaphor—you seem to be Between Judge Wallace and the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... couple of paces away from the door, humming a song about a coachman who loved a turnkey's daughter. Almost mad with excitement, Dick stood in the darkness of the hut with his outstretched arms shaking and quivering. He was afraid he would shout, and bit his finger-nails to help ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... turnkey's rooms sat a horrible committee, who acted as a sort of tribunal, but very few of the priests reached it. They were for the most part cut down as they stepped out into the throng in the court—- consisting of red-capped ruffians, with their shirt sleeves turned up, and still more fiendish ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the great Number One, from Richmond Bridewell, was something of an eye-opener, but not half so astonishing as some things that would have happened if the general movement had been successful. It was Daniel Byrne and James Breslin, who let him out. Byrne was a turnkey, Breslin was hospital superintendent, and both held their posts on account of their well-known loyalty. Byrne was found out, or rather it was discovered that he was a Fenian, but they could not prove his guilt in the Stephens affair, and he never rounded on Breslin, who went on drawing his screw ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... had been lodged either in the Temple or La Force, and one of them, Bouvet de Lozier, who was confined in the Temple, attempted to hang himself. He made use of his cravat to effect his purpose, and had nearly succeeded, when a turnkey by chance entered and found him at the point of death. When he was recovered he acknowledged that though he had the courage to meet death, he was unable to endure the interrogatories of his trial, and that he had determined to kill himself, lest he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... letting us have a short walk together?" Then turning to others who were near, he added, with a pleasant smile, "Gentlemen, I hope you are all well this morning," and putting his arm in Tournier's went to the gate. There was a guard-room and a turnkey's lodge outside. A glance through the grating of the heavy door, and ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... brought one heart-mellowing recollection. In the morning it was old John Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it to spare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Past that, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I tried ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge's arm as he held by the turnkey's. Their three heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... am satisfied that I can trust you, and will continue my story. I was taken to prison, and confined in a dungeon, as a forger. I asked the amount of money which I stood charged with obtaining, and the turnkey laughed in my face, and told me that I ought to know better than he the sum ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... me in the turnkey frill—and sometimes perhaps it lifted my spurs—why not? And at these suppers you speak of, well, they are all very gay—it is I only who have bidden them, who reap no profit. For whosoever may sit there the chair at my side ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are set free," replied the turnkey addressed, "and all but one or two of the common felons ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Cummiskey started for Sligo, and, as usual, when they reached the jail the turnkey was about to conduct the squire to Sir Robert's room, when the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... garden, Santerre used to come up with a troop of soldiers. The sentries whom they passed shouldered arms before Santerre; but as soon as he had passed and the king came, they grounded their arms, and pretended not to see him. In the door that led into the garden, Rocher, the turnkey, used to stand, and take his pleasure in letting the royal family wait before unlocking, while he blew great clouds of smoke into their faces from his long tobacco-pipe. The National Guards who ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... determined countenance that I ever saw. He appeared to be worn down with ill-health, and his limbs much swelled: notwithstanding which, he had strong handcuffs on his wrists, and he seemed to be guarded with uncommon care. He begged the turnkey to lay him down upon the miserable iron bed that was in the cell; and he begged him, for God's sake, to let him have a jug of water by his bedside, and to leave him ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Darkness' Doors. By service from all living men made proud, Ishtar brooked not resistance from the dead. She called the jailer, then to anger changed The love that sped her on her breathless way, And from her parted lips incontinent Swept speech that made the unyielding warder quail. "Quick, turnkey of the pit! swing wide these doors, And fling them swiftly open. Tarry not! For I will pass, even I will enter in. Dare no denial, thou, bar not my way, Else will I burst thy bolts and rend thy gates, This lintel shatter else and wreck these doors. The pent-up ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... themselves with an involuntary gesture of menace. Then the tide of anger ebbed; a contemptuous smile parted his lips. And, bowing with an air of light mockery to the court, he turned, erect and easy, to follow his turnkey out of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Roaring Girl (1611). She was a woman of masculine vigor, who not unfrequently assumed man's attire. This notorious cut-purse once attacked General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath, but was arrested and sent to Newgate; she escaped, however, by bribing the turnkey, and died of dropsy at the age of 75. Nathaniel Field introduces her in his drama called Amends for ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... deal with me, mates, but ye'll find ye can't argue with the judge," went on Thirkle in a quiet tone, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Ye'll find ye can't talk the turnkey into liberty, and it will be too late the morning the hangman opens the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... soldiers entered with the turnkey. The latter, going up to Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter, said to them ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... prisoner, no less delighted than was the boy, "how was it possible for you to gain admittance to me? You are the first person I have seen, except the turnkey, in my prison." ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... turnkey was dispatched; and in a few moments he returned, accompanied by a half dozen prisoners; one was a slim, dark young man with a nervous, expressive look, and a great tangle of curling black hair. The face was haggard ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... so soundly, that Mr Dennis began to think he might sleep on until the turnkey visited them. He was congratulating himself upon these promising appearances, and blessing his stars with much fervour, when one or two unpleasant symptoms manifested themselves: such as another motion of the arm, another sigh, a restless tossing of the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... fist, was about to answer in no pacific mood, when a turnkey, who did not care in the least how many men he locked up for an offence, but who did not at all like the trouble of looking after any one of his flock to see that the offence was not committed, now suddenly appeared among the set; and after scolding them for the excessive plague they ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the warden sat in his little office, consulting the sheriff about some details of the approaching execution. While they were still in discussion, a turnkey opened the door, saying: ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows what he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two respectable strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with stripes and stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making their feet fast in the stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... so much in awe as a member of Congress; especially a member of Mr. Giddings' well-known fearless determination. He was allowed to come in, bringing another person with him, but was followed into the jail by a crowd of ruffians, who compelled the turnkey to admit them into the passage, and who vented their rage in execration and threats. Mr. Giddings said that he had understood we were here in jail without counsel or friends, and that he had come to let us know that we should not want for either; and he introduced the person he ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... i. 458. In Humphry Clinker, in the Letter of June 11, the turnkey of Clerkenwell Prison thus speaks of a Methodist:—'I don't care if the devil had him; here has been nothing but canting and praying since the fellow entered the place. Rabbit him! the tap will be ruined—we han't sold ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Monsieur Veeleeum. Take him to the east side among the political offenders," said the master-jailer to an assistant or turnkey. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... fear, have murdered sleep. His lady, too, with grace will sleep and talk: Our females have been used at night to walk. Grant us your favor, put us to the test: To gain your smiles we'll do our very best, And without dread of future Turnkey Lockets, Thus, in an honest way, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... am apt to think that he applied himself to the Mayor or the Sheriffs of London; for the next day one of the Sheriffs, called Sir William Turner, a woollen- draper in Paul's Yard, came to the press-yard, and having ordered the porter of Bridewell to attend him there, sent up a turnkey amongst us, to bid all the Bridewell prisoners come down to him, for they knew us not, but we knew our ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... America he found his way westward until he arrived at Chagrin river in Cuyahoga county, where he found employment with a Mr. Waite, at eight dollars a month, working one year at this rate. The next two years were spent in the brick yard of A. W. Duty. Following this, he was for two years turnkey under sheriff Beebe, and then established himself in a brick yard of his own on the west side of the river. One Summer's work in this experiment gave him a start in business life, and laid the foundation, small though it was, of his ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... The Turnkey, on her arrest, had told Sam that she had been brought to the Fleet, "on a Cognovit for costs," Sam imparted this news to Job Trotter, and sent him off, hot foot, to Perker in Montague Place. This outcast, was able to tell ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald |
